Thank you very much for the kind insult, do you have any suggestions?

>>161006
Be friendlier to newfags and oldfags alike. Duh.

I...think the /oat/ community is pretty okay? As far as I can tell, the site has fewer flamewars than ever before. Even Manley's threads don't spark tensions very much anymore. Sure we're not perfect, but if we're steadily improving I'd call that good, and I certainly don't think we're dying.

Now, that said, I have long advocated an anti-hazing policy when new potential posters show up. New posters just won't defend themselves and request moderator help as readily as a veteran. They have to be protected beyond that. I can think of no easy way to put that into writing, but if the entire suggestion here so far is "be friendlier", then I feel as though I have also made progress on being more specific.

Anything going on in /oat/, including any new people that are oblivious to site culture and social queues, are much less toxic and difficult to put up with than the constant array of shit that you spew from your keyboard.

uhhh, wut? i havent seen any kind of drama on /oat/ in forever

and /oat/ is usually always fun

so yeah. /oat/ is fine the way it is

>>161009
And you aren't a toxic piece of shit yourself? Fuck off. You're clearly one of the biggest assholes on this site, so I don't know what you're even getting at.

Last edited at Tue, Sep 2nd, 2014 09:30

Simple question:
Can you link events where one of the following happens?

1. /oat/ community being a massive asshole towards a newcomer. (no, the incidental asshole ignored anon does not count)

2. Individuals complaining and fighting about a ban.
(I admit, it happens, but at such an allarming scale?)

3. Ganging up against individuals in an unreasonable way?
(I'm sorry, though, but if you hold a controversial opinion, the opposition you get is definitely understandable)

You at least seem to hold a very sick/distorted view on the /oat/ community.

What an aimless ramble.

As of late, people like you have been complaining about this now and then and nothing ever comes of it. For a good reason, as well! It's a lot easier to sit on the outside and point fingers (not to mention flat out make shit up) whenever you see something you don't care for than it is to actually do something about it. It's even easier to think you can solve it by running to the moderators and tugging on their pants while desperately asking for help, but the moderators have absolutely nothing to do with the situation.

The Ponychan you see has been in the making for years and years, and all the splinterchans who desired less harsh rules that have popped up over the years are evidence to that. If you think that making the rules harsher -again- is going to revitalize the site, you're shortsighted and don't understand that the reason people are as they are is dramatically more complicated than that in addition to lacking a fundamental understanding of how to attract people to a place (hint: "we have much more pervasive rules again that most of the larger communities make fun of us for having in the past!" is not a very good selling point)

If you want this community to be more positive, then be more positive within it. If you want your friends to be more positive, get them to be more positive. The change needed is with the people themselves and not how the people are regulated, and regulating them more heavily is just going to make them tell you to fuck off and leave to a splinter or hide away in yet another stupid shitty serial thread. I say this, but it's not like I ever even see you post on the board in the first place so it hardly matters. I guess it's "shit", but it being shit isn't enough of a concern that you try to wade through it to post on something you want to enjoy.


Oh, and just to focus on one paragraph because it's absolutely ridiculous:

>Another thought is that when people are banned, there is a lack of people taking responsibility for their actions and instead blaming the banning moderator and/or the person they were in a flamewar with.

People will usually be upset at people they like being banned and people they dislike not being banned. Asking other users to nod their heads and agree with everything the mods do is absurd. This sounds like more of a pet peeve of your own that you needlessly slipped into your grand PONYCHAN IS DYING treatise.

>Furthermore, many times I've witnessed people starting shit with each other and then a crowd always side with one user to lift pitchforks against another, which devolves into one single hivemind.

This happens to several particular people, yes. Manley, Ravenheart, TOSF, etc. The thing is, these people also have a habit of saying and doing intensely stupid (and sometimes offensive!) things. The fact that they are being called out is less due to the population of ponychan and its general attitude and more a circumstance of their own behavior.

>>161015
I can't link them because they're probably gone by now, and I don't feel like digging through a bunch of threads needlessly. Besides, you know how fast /oat/ goes by now.

>/oat/ community being a massive asshole towards a newcomer. (no, the incidental asshole ignored anon does not count)
There was one guy who said that he does brony music. (Now he was confirmed to be a fraud, but that was wayy later into that thread, about 200 posts down.) People were talking shit about how brony music sucks and that they don't want people like him on /oat/.

Another thread is someone came in with a terrible-looking OC. I don't blame some of the critics of his OC, but they blew things out of proportion when certain users (I believe it was McEdge, Soarin, and a few others) told him to fuck off.

There's another new person thread where TOSSF kept telling the OP to drink cyanide (or some kind of chemical) and advocated that OP should kill himself.

>Ganging up against individuals in an unreasonable way?
Ember Storm. All the time, people so claim that he starts shit, but I usually look at those situations and determine he doesn't. In one of the OC threads, I believe Applepie jumped on Ember claiming that he shouldn't be talking because his OC is shit, then eveyone else jumped in on the train.

>>161017
>As of late, people like you have been complaining about this now and then and nothing ever comes of it.
And you know why? Because usually everyone think shit's fine or you get faggots like this guy >>161009
attacking the OP.

>t's a lot easier to sit on the outside and point fingers (not to mention flat out make shit up) whenever you see something you don't care for than it is to actually do something about it.
Are you dumb? Why do you think I made this /meta/ thread instead of sitting back and just watching the whole thing?

>The Ponychan you see has been in the making for years and years, and all the splinterchans who desired less harsh rules that have popped up over the years are evidence to that.
And guess what? MLPchan is pretty much the only "active" splinterchan.

>If you want this community to be more positive, then be more positive within it. If you want your friends to be more positive, get them to be more positive. The change needed is with the people themselves and not how the people are regulated, and regulating them more heavily is just going to make them tell you to fuck off and leave to a splinter or hide away in yet another stupid shitty serial thread. I say this, but it's not like I ever even see you post on the board in the first place so it hardly matters. I guess it's "shit", but it being shit isn't enough of a concern that you try to wade through it to post on something you want to enjoy.
I tried being positive, others have tried being positive, but clearly it doesn't work.

>People will usually be upset at people they like being banned and people they dislike not being banned. Asking other users to nod their heads and agree with everything the mods do is absurd. This sounds like more of a pet peeve of your own that you needlessly slipped into your grand PONYCHAN IS DYING treatise.
Clearly you don't get my point. Obviously we've terrible mods at a few times, but what I was saying is that people don't even bother to improve after the ban.

>This happens to several particular people, yes. Manley, Ravenheart, TOSF, etc. The thing is, these people also have a habit of saying and doing intensely stupid (and sometimes offensive!) things. The fact that they are being called out is less due to the population of ponychan and its general attitude and more a circumstance of their own behavior.
Is it always what they do or who they are? I'm starting to see less of the former and more of the latter.

>>161018

For someone who is crying about making this site more civil, you sure do resort to calling people dumb or faggots or whatever else pretty easy. Then again, so does everyone else who seems to start these things up. Sheesh, you're bad at this!

>And guess what? MLPchan is pretty much the only "active" splinterchan.

That's more due to the circumstance of people leaving over time being a lot more noticeable in smaller communities.Efchan and MLPchan both have sufficient usercount to justify their existences however.

>I tried being positive, others have tried being positive, but clearly it doesn't work.

Then give up. Take your ball and go home. Shoo.

There are plenty of nice people on this site, and even the less-than-nice people can have often have nice conversations. Literally the only difference on this website in regards to interpersonal behavior nowadays is you can't be constantly abrasive or retarded without at least some people noticing and letting you know.

But even then, many people often side with anone under duress in any side of a dispute unless they're literally a total lost cause like Ravenheart.

>Clearly you don't get my point. Obviously we've terrible mods at a few times, but what I was saying is that people don't even bother to improve after the ban.

And I'm saying that has nothing to do with everything else that you're asking for because a moderator cannot force someone who has been banned to feel remorse or learn their lesson. It was tried in the past with ban appeals more or less being fancily-dressed "apologize to me" forms but even that did not work. People are not going to improve if they don't want to improve, and the system itself takes care of the worst cases of this by having them simply be banned again.

That is not something that a moderator can actually handle and again is another case of something that needs to be changed on a community level (and good luck dictating how people should feel).

>Is it always what they do or who they are? I'm starting to see less of the former and more of the latter.

No, I'm not going to say that nobody on here has ever jumped the gun in assailing someone over something, but by and large it's always something that triggers it. RS being obnoxious and insulting all of his opponents opinions, Manley being ignorant and unable to listen to other people's advice and thus having the same arguments over and over and over, Ember storm being openly abrasive and blunt and then acting like no one should ever give him reproach for it, Raven being a weird nutty creeper, TOSF just in general being a horrible person and telling people to drink bleach and die, etc.



And even in cases when they're not, it's usually just built-up loathing for having to deal with the above content for ages and ages.

None of the above people are innocent victims in anything and their situations are a lot more complicated than "they get attacked for who they are." If you want to talk about not learning their lesson, they are some of the worst culprits on the website although occasionally Manley shows the tiniest signs of it.

>>161019
>For someone who is crying about making this site more civil, you sure do resort to calling people dumb or faggots or whatever else pretty easy. Then again, so does everyone else who seems to start these things up.
Because FGI decided that the the cool thing to do is to walk in this thread and attack my character rather than my points. And he's done this to multiple OPs over months. I regret nothing.

>Then give up. Take your ball and go home. Shoo.
Maybe I should, because clearly you think everything's all perfect around here.

>There are plenty of nice people on this site, and even the less-than-nice people can have often have nice conversations. Literally the only difference on this website in regards to interpersonal behavior nowadays is you can't be constantly abrasive or retarded without at least some people noticing and letting you know.
True for some people, but not others. I don't need to be reminded about how you guys are butt-buddies with people like applepie, mew, onionbubs, whatever. I know there's more, but it's like you guys (not you specifically) see something, converge into this giant hivemind, make that person mad, then act like victims. It's stupid and rediculous.

>No, I'm not going to say that nobody on here has ever jumped the gun in assailing someone over something, but by and large it's always something that triggers it. RS being obnoxious and insulting all of his opponents opinions, Manley being ignorant and unable to listen to other people's advice and thus having the same arguments over and over and over, Ember storm being openly abrasive and blunt and then acting like no one should ever give him reproach for it, Raven being a weird nutty creeper, TOSF just in general being a horrible person and telling people to drink bleach and die, etc.
Ok, I agree that TOSSF telling people to drink bleach is just terrible. And I understand that none of the above you mentioned have never been assholes, but to say that they are the sole perpetrator of every argument they started on /oat/ is dishonest. Because I take the time to actually look into these arguments instead of immediately riding your friends' dicks.

>>161023

im on lunch break so i dont have enough time to respond to everything but:

> I don't need to be reminded about how you guys are butt-buddies with people like applepie, mew, onionbubs, whatever.

Who are "you guys"? I don't like Mewtini or Onionbubs very much, and Applepie is all right and a pretty innocuous poster but I'm certainly not BUTT BUDDIES with him. And I'd wager to say that they probably aren't with each other either really. Not to the degree that they'd randomly agree with each other

> but to say that they are the sole perpetrator of every argument they started on /oat/ is dishonest.

I didn't say that they were. In fact, I expressly said that they weren't. But I'd say a good amount of the time, they do in fact start the downhill tumble.

Honestly, I see what you mean sometimes, but every time it happens people act like its bigger than it is I think.

>>161013
What are you gonna do? Name drop at me? Oh please dont remind us again how you've been here ALL summer and deserve respect, I cant take it! Or how about you laugh about there being too much drama (hint: there isn't) while crying about how you missed out on it because you were too busy spewing obnoxious nonsense somewhere else that you just CAN'T WAIT to brag about like a single person here cares.

If you're going to pass your ever-righteous judgment on a whole board that you clearly know very little about and then shit out a tree when one person tells you to shut up, you really need to just shut up.

Enough with the shit flinging in this thread, next person to make a serious insult / mockery / comment-everyone-on-the-fucking-planet-would-call-an-insult-but-you'll-try-to-say-it-isnt-anyway against someone else is getting banned from /meta/.

I dont give a crap about the fight you two seem to have with each other and i certainly dont give a shit about either of you trying to get the last word in after i've said this, so just shut up and actually discuss the thread topic.

i like /oat/... but it always helps to be nicer.

that doesn't come from /meta/ though. and that has always been our mistake. it comes from the users... post as you want to post. post as you want to see. Do unto others... and they will do unto you.

>or someone pretending to be a new person
>Sometimes they might even post an OC
lel

>>161023
>And I understand that none of the above you mentioned have never been assholes, but to say that they are the sole perpetrator of every argument they started on /oat/ is dishonest. Because I take the time to actually look into these arguments instead of immediately riding your friends' dicks.

Well since people felt they had to drag me into this argument I'll say what I've always said. The only reason I act harsh to people is because they feel they absolutely need to be dicks to me or else they explode, that's just how haters are.

Other than those few people who act like little cretins, OP, there are some nice posters like Mondo and others here that are worth being around for, and the mods, while not being perfect, do what they can with what they have.

Also I have noticed those shit posters seem to disappear or become more sporadic after summer so all you need to do is make the most of your time in the Fall, Winter, and Spring and then just find something else to do and wait them out over the next summer when they return and turn this place back into their little clubhouse of hate.

Also, if /oat/ is ever too bad there is always new /dis/ if you can ever get it active for more than a few hours at a time and /pony/ when you can sift through the silliness.

Last edited at Tue, Sep 2nd, 2014 20:35

>>161036
And, of course, /Chrixieland/!

>>161035
lel

>>161036

Truly, one must question whether there's any reason to even exist in the summer. Perhaps hibernation would be a better idea.

>>161041

I don't think that amount of sleeping is possible unless you're in a medically induced coma.

>>161032
ur a doody head :^)

Listen up:

Step 1: Take /oat/ and return it to the older rules where discussion had to be related to the show or fandom, albeit not necessarily serious.

Step 2: Redirect all non-pony or -fandom related discussion to /chat/.

Hang on, wouldn't this fix the issue where only five people actively post on /chat/, too? My Stars! It's almost like we should have never re-opened /oat/ to randomness in the first place!

Step 3: Tell Fenolio to STEP IT UP.

>>161049
Step 4: Complain about lack of activity on /oat/

Step 5: Open up /oat/

Step 6: Complain about lack of pony and "evil posters"

Step 7: See step 1

>>161050
The only reason /oat/ was re-opened in general is because Moony, as !!Fluttershy, pushed for it. Then, of course, he resigned from his position.

Don't get me wrong, Moony's a great guy, but he doesn't always have the greatest ideas.

An open /oat/ worked back in 2011 when we had a smaller user base. Nowadays we don't need it to be open. Outside of the hiatuses, /oat/ creates its own content. Even during the hiatus, there's now comics that can be discussed, not that they're that great and worth discussing, but meh. I digress.

Still, resetting /oat/ would probably help to fix the issues.

>>161049

it wouldn't fix the problem where there would be like 5 people posting on /oat/ though

flip flopping traffic between two dead boards is still going to leave you with a dead board in the end

>>161051
If he's good enough to do that you should ask him to teach you a few things.

Smaller user base? 2011? I doubt that. But I would love to see the numbers.

Nevermind... Do you honestly believe that /oat/ wouldn't be a desolate wasteland if you restricted it to show/fandom content?

I think you would end up with a more active /chat/, some people leaving (to return later (perhaps)) and a dead /oat/.

>>161055
Quite frankly, I don't give any shits about what would happen to /oat/. I think /oat/'s a rather silly board.

>>161056
^lol i dun care
Soo? Is that your exit strategy?

>>161049
Step Fish: Shut the fuck up you quadruple giga nigga.

Also, see >>161054>>161055

>>161056
>HOW TO FIX /OAT/
>Quite frankly, I don't give any shits about what would happen to /oat/.
Up it Step.

>>161051
i don't think that's true... also, i really didn't want to retire, either.

i think that /oat/ is better off in this way... and that we have overall gained net site usage, with many old ponies even returning.

i think /oat/'s a great board... but that there is always a little room for improvement. Right now, i think the focus needs to be more on bringing some love to /chat/. instead of always putting it down and talking ill of it, we should do our part in propping it up and helping it be fun.

on meta, we all have a way of zooming in on the negative, which makes everything look negative. there's good work to be done though, and it is my observation that meta is the root of more problems than it is the solution to... just post and have fun, and so too will ponies

>>161059
>Right now, i think the focus needs to be more on bringing some love to /chat/. instead of always putting it down and talking ill of it, we should do our part in propping it up and helping it be fun.

Except how the fuck do we do that when /oat/ is literally the same board minus the few die hards in /chat/ that didnt migrate and the fact you can post pony topics in /oat/.

Good will is good and all, but you cant build a house by hugging the bricks and smiling at the cement.

>>161060

What if you make the bricks hugs each other and the cement?

>>161061
You end up with a pretty gay house?

>>161061
>>161062

Are we retelling Ponychan's origin story?

>>161062

Our gay house, in the middle of our street.

>>161061
>>161062
And thus the gay bathhouse was born.

>>161060
focus on /chat/ c: make it more about non-pony; not through strict enforcement, but through some guidelines.

/oat/ is not the same as /chat/. /pony/ is very pony focused. /chat/ is non-pony focused. and /oat/... is in between. this is a good setup! i think maybe, even collapsing /dis/ into /chat/, especially with the disappearance of flutterguy, may be a good idea

/oat/ is scarcely pony-focused. i mean it comes and goes in little waves but even during episode season it would have a lot of pony threads the day of an episode and then relax back into people bullshitting in every other way instead afterwords until the next one

>>161066

Collapsing /dis/ into /chat/ would probably be worse than collapsing /chat/ into /oat/. /dis/ might be pretty slow, but that's also really very okay for /dis/.

We could even collapse /oat/ into /pony/ more effectively. I was once against that, because I always took /pony/ very seriously, but with how dead /oat/ is, I think a few silly threads might be okay in the end. There just isn't much left to the pony portion of /oat/, so I don't expect it to upset /pony/ very much. Having a "Pony General" board and an "Off-Topic" board would probably work pretty well.

The short story is just that /chat/ has nothing left worth saving. Nearly all of its posters are actually on other boards of the chan, usually /oat/. Literally all of its threads would fit right in on /oat/, without exception. We said we'd allow /chat/ on /oat/ and that's where it went. Best to push it the rest of the way.

>>161066
>make it more about non-pony
Literally how.

>/oat/... is in between.
It really isnt.
"Pony focused" doesn't mean posting pictures of ponies or one of your tea party threads.

It means actually talking about ponies, either the characters, the setting, the fandom, the merch, the comics, the show, the writers, the different cons, the music, the art, roleplaying with ponies and fanfics, amongst anything else i forgot to mention here.

There's barely any of that on /oat/.

>We've got hearts as strong as horses!
Pony

>I am crying
Not pony

>Post your encounters with people that make you facepalm.
Could be pony, but starts off nonpony.

>i have been thinking... most of my closest friends are rainbow dash personalities...
Pony

>A friendly reminder that broccoli is arguably the greatest vegetable in the world.
Not pony

>Aw yeah, gettin' shit done (Drawthread)
Could be pony, primarily not pony.

>Saw the Wolf of Wall Street recently.
Not pony

>TOUHOU THREAD!
Not pony.

>"No.. Stop.. please come back.."
Not pony.

>i'm a pikachu
Not pony.

>a day without Dan???
Not pony.

>What if a future Brony convention had the "Amazing Bottle Dancers" as one of the events?
Pony.

>I would like sour skittles if they weren't sour.
Barely pony.

>Dear /oat/,
Pony

>R8 my shirt Oat
Not pony.


4 definite pony threads.
8 definite non pony threads.
3 maybe pony threads that more than likely non pony than they are pony.

If /oat/ actually was "in between" like you said, there would be a lot more "maybe threads" and more of a balance between the definite threads.

Right now though, it's just /chat/ except that you can post pony threads occasionally.

Putting /dis/ into /chat/ will do nothing since the people who like either board couldn't integrate themselves together properly as they both want things that are incompatible.
/chat/izens want to just chill and talk while /dis/sents want to discuss things / soapbox things.

Putting /oat/ and /chat/ together as a single board makes the most sense as /oat/ is barely pony anyway.

Last edited at Thu, Sep 4th, 2014 05:29

>>161069
i understand, i don't get to decide what "non-pony" means, or what "pony" means. But i think that sword cuts both ways.

i did explain the two ways i felt could help /chat/ be more focused on non-pony.

1. Add some guidelines towards non-pony content
2. Bring /dis/ back into /chat/

the merits of these can be argued, but i did literally suggest these.

>"Pony focused" doesn't mean posting pictures of ponies or one of your tea party threads.
/oat/ isn't pony focused though. It is in between; it has some pony, it has some chatting, and the two blend together sometimes to make great stuff. Yes, this means we will have chatting by itself sometimes, but that's just what happens. If we remove the chatting, we risk removing the other good stuff. Turning /oat/ into a "pony focused" board is just making it into a /pony/ copy, but worse. Likewise, merging /chat/ with /oat/ isn't going to fix your qualm with /oat/ not being pony enough.

now, i know we don't have the best history of disagreement, but i will concede this point; /oat/ doesn't have enough poni in its current state.

i think if we focus on the real issues of each board together, we will get much further than by butting heads. i don't see a reason to have to dispute so much... as we all know, sometimes action is better than reaction

>>161069
>>161070
Oh hey, I'm in /meta/.

Just throwing this out there, my favorite interpretation of /oat/ was when it was basically a hybrid of other boards. You could have discussion (show or otherwise), random pony stuff, even light roleplay, all in the same board and even the same thread. When you separate all that into different boards it's all better organized sure, but I think it misses out on everything in between. There's no place for more than one category at a time.

Then again I'm not an /oat/ regular anymore, I don't really know what goes on there right now. I do know that no one's ever been very successful at defining what the board is even for though.

>>161070
>/oat/ isn't pony focused though.
And that's a problem. It's starving other boards of content because 90% of the site is made redundant.

u guys should just rename /oat/ to /mikie/

or ATLEAST have a /mikie/ board u fucking plebs

>>161072
You lost your right to speak when you said you didn't give a shit about it.

/shoo

>>161074
The only reason I don't give a shit about it is because the mods don't.

It's not going to change no matter what. I've bee saying the same shit for over a year now and no one's listened.

That's why I don't give a shit. I've given up.

So bugger off and don't tell me to leave. You also have no right to tell me I have no right to speak.

no really, hes right. you dont need to be speaking seriously on any subject when you say you dont care about half of it. it more or less disqualifies you from being taken seriously

>>161070
My bad, i thought i got rid of that first bit before i posted.

1. What kind of guidelines could you possibly put in /chat/ that would make it more focused on anything "Not ponies." when ponies aren't even supposed to be on the board on the first place.

2. "Putting /dis/ into /chat/ will do nothing since the people who like either board couldn't integrate themselves together properly as they both want things that are incompatible.
"/chat/izens want to just chill and talk while /dis/sents want to discuss things / soapbox things."

---------
>/oat/ isn't pony focused though. It is in between; it has some pony, it has some chatting, and the two blend together sometimes to make great stuff.
>Yes, this means we will have chatting by itself sometimes, but that's just what happens.

>Sometimes.
Everytime i look at /oat/, there is barely any pony in it and you are usually the driving force behind what little pony there is.

>Turning /oat/ into a "pony focused" board is just making it into a /pony/ copy, but worse.
I hope you understand the irony in this statement when making /oat/ accept every topic literally turned /chat/ into a worse copy of /oat/.

In any case, it wouldn't.
There would naturally be some overlap of topics, but /pony/ doesn't allow roleplay, fanfic threads, art threads, etc, it's focus is primarily on the canon of the show.

>Likewise, merging /chat/ with /oat/ isn't going to fix your qualm with /oat/ not being pony enough.
Duh, but it would solve the problem of /chat/ being dead.
It's not something i particularly want, but trying to separate the /chat/ from /oat/ at this point would just be suicidal and the only difference for /chat/er's is that they'd see the occasional pony thread which they could hide if they dont want to see it.
If there's suddenly a huge outcry for more pony topics on /oat/, then things would be different.
But if that were the case then the issue would fix itself as /oat/ is literally open to everything

>>161071
Do you find it weird when we agree on something for once?
Because that's what I've been saying for at least several months now, /oat/ being the general hot-pot for anything pony, that is.

It actually was that, your belief that i hate all roleplay aside, before it was opened to every topic.


>>161073
I'll get zeke on it.

>>161075
>because the mods don't.
How in the blood soaked protestant hell did you come to that conclusion when i'm in this thread discussing the issue.

If you've given up, whats the point in watching this thread and commenting on it.

You haven't lost your right to speak, but you lost the right to be listened to because:

" I don't give any shits about what would happen to /oat/." >>161056

EDIT: I literally use the word literally too much.

Last edited at Thu, Sep 4th, 2014 13:35

>>161077
THATS THE SPIRIT

>>161077
>If there's suddenly a huge outcry for more pony topics on /oat/, then things would be different.
>But if that were the case then the issue would fix itself as /oat/ is literally open to everything

That's a really important point that I think has been mentioned a few times already. For redundancy, though, rules and regulations cannot create board content. /oat/ is currently open to pony topics and if people really wanted pony topics they would make them. The fact that there are not very many pony related topics is telling of what the userbase seems to want. One could go on to say that given the slow dead nature of /oat/ prior to this change, people probably didn't want them too badly before, either, or people wouldn't have tried to come up with a way to revitalize the board.

>>161071

I loved that at first announcement. /oat/ became /chat/ with ponies in it and I thought that was pretty great, because I liked /chat/ and I liked ponies. It's cool that you can have all that stuff in one place with all the same people attending.

Though it kind of uncovers a problem, too, because this change wasn't made for the site as a whole, but for /oat/ itself. Now one could argue that this is the same thing because if one board is doing really well obviously the site's going to improve, too, but that's doging the nature of the problem. See, people get really attached to their boards or threads, rather than the site as a whole, and they're always thinking about how they can fix these individual places without just going to somewhere else on the site. It's especially telling in /gala/, where people are adverse to even making new threads. Thinking back to PAD, specifically, the kind of panicked desperate devotion I've seen towards it in the past (not so much anymore, obviously) seemed alien to me. But for some reason or another, that one specific thread has so much meaning to some people that even though they could easily post somewhere else on the same site (or even the same board in this case) it would lose meaning if they weren't following proper PAD creating protocols. And you see the same thing with places like /chat/. It's slow and dead and doesn't really serve a purpose, but every once in a while you'll see someone really try to inject life back into it rather than just posting all the stuff they would have on /oat/ anyway, where it would be better received.

Except as weird as all that is, there's another layer to the problem, and that is the fact that we can't just overwrite what people want or do. We can look at them and tell them they're weird, but as a business we still have to cater to our customers or they're going to leave. Which kind of puts things in an uncomfortable situation where what seems like it would be the optimal and obvious choice actually wouldn't fly all that well for no reason other than customer preference. Maybe it makes sense to get rid of the "Natural Foods" section and just move the all natural peanut butter over next to the rest of the peanut butter. That improves things in a few ways, right? If people want peanut butter of any kind they'll know where to go for it, people who had never seen the all natural peanut butter might suddenly try it because it's right next to their usual stuff, all sorts of nice little bonuses even though we're creating and selling the same product.

But I guarantee you that you will, for years to come, be forced to deal with people asking where the natural foods section went and why you no longer have one.

>>161079
As far as I recall, opening /oat/ wasn't done for /oat/'s sake, it was done for /chat/'s sake. /chat/ wanted to be able to post pony threads, so they came to /meta/ and kicked off the discussion. In the process of making a /chat/ that could contain pony threads, /oat/ was effectively destroyed and forced to integrate into /chat/. It wasn't a massive loss, as /oat/ back then was deader than /chat/ is now, but the fact is that opening /oat/, while "good for the board" was only good for the name in the address bar, not necessarily the people who used it at the time the change was made. For all I know, it was, but it wasn't intended to.

>>161080
No, it was a pretty /oat/ driven thing because of the constant derailment into talking amongst each other.

People from /chat/ largely didnt give a fuck beyond "We're keeping our board because we dont like ponies."

>>161081
I think there were people for and against it on both sides.

I just remember it being /chat/ driven because
1. I never saw these weird /chat/ people before and
2. there were more of them than there were /oat/ people.

So when I opened up the thread discussing it, I saw more voices supporting it that were from /chat/ than I did from /oat/. Which was likely true, but it was counterbalanced by the fact that there were more voices from /chat/ opposing it, too.

Then again, I could also be conflating /chat/ and /meta/ posters, who I refused to believe existed, but have since come to realize are actual, real people who do in fact post primarily on /meta/

>>161079
That's a pretty good analysis of a lot of the community decisions here, yes. They've generally been made with good intentions for the site as a whole, but any potential advantages are usually outweighed by indignation that some people's favourite section is changing (and therefore the administration must hate it). The reality is that people value their existing social circles and structures beyond all else, and any change that isn't providing more freedoms (and, sometimes, even that) is undesirable at best and malicious at worst. Hence the /oat/ change, because that was the most mutually acceptable option, even if it left the site with an unfortunate overlap.

>>161077
>How in the blood soaked protestant hell did you come to that conclusion when i'm in this thread discussing the issue

Discussion is all that ever seems to get done though, so I can see how it could be frustrating for people who've been asking for action for what seems to be a long time now.

>>161081

More or less every other time it was proposed for /oat/'s sake, yeah, because /oat/ was dead as a doornail

for whatever reason though, the time it actually went through it was originally a proposal by a few users that never even post here for whatever reason, and slowly became mostly /chat/ wanting to talk about ponies more

>>161082

I'm still shocked that "/meta/ posters" are a thing that exists, but that's a different problem entirely.

>>161084

It is difficult for some to separate "mods" from "staff". It is often assumed that a small site like this is going to have a staff that is always in agreement with itself, which would make sense and be really great, but in practice you really do have to take anything a mod ever says as personal opinion, even if they say "we", and keep in mind that one mod wanting something doesn't mean any of the others did, or that an admin would allow it or push through the change.

i like what i am seeing in the thread... just as an aside, i mean. it is sort of nice to be able to have productive discussion without any of the... you know... horrible stuff that meta is famous for.

now, fenny does bring up a point i will concede in that merging /chat/ with /dis/ is perhaps not a tenable solution... it was just a brainstorm suggestion.

Mondo highlights another important root issue... there just aren't enough posts to go around, in the first place. In a perfect world, we would have all of these boards with their niches, all very active... i guess sort of like 4chan...

but at this point, we must find a way to make the boards function in a way that allows high enough activity to sustain growth.

from this perspective, i can see why a merger of /oat/ and /chat/ looks desirable... but as Admiral said, old /oat/ was literally a ghost town. /chat/ is pretty empty, but at least it has posts daily.

i think /chat/ can be worked with, but as fenny says, it is a question of how. now, i cannot offer some cure-all solution, as there are no cure-all solutions. we learned this with the /pony/show/ name change, we learned this with the original /oat/ crackdowns, the closure of /ef/, the /gala/ change... etc.

i believe, the best solution is to come up with little steps to achieve the longterm goal of bringing more posts to /chat/, without compromising /oat/ or /pony/.

little steps, like being less disparaging towards it. instead of talking so much about how empty it is, or how regretful we are of this or that... let us live with the reality that these are the things we have, and let us work with them. post in boards... i know this sounds really silly, but post. post what you wish to see, and over time, you will see more of it... it is like planting trees.

i don't have much more than little ways to make /chat/ or /oat/ or anyplace better... but that's really what we need, i think. i am honestly not sure Ponychan will survive another shakeup of /ef/ proportions... i think it is time to take things slow and steady.



Also, for /oat/... i was thinking we could do "Pony Saturdays." i saw a poster requesting a "Rarity day" and i was thinking that a themed Pony Saturday voted on by users each week could be a great way to inspire some more pony fun.

i'd volunteer to do the poll even, to minimize the labor for the staff, if that's an option.

Likewise, a topic of the week for /chat/, or something like that, could be a good initiative. There's lots of small ways to bring good stuff to the boards, and the worst possible way, i think history has proven, of getting anything good done is by being in /meta/

>>161087
>little steps, like being less disparaging towards it. instead of talking so much about how empty it is, or how regretful we are of this or that... let us live with the reality that these are the things we have, and let us work with them. post in boards... i know this sounds really silly, but post. post what you wish to see, and over time, you will see more of it... it is like planting trees.

That's really what it's at, but that's also a very user driven thing. A site change of any kind cannot really address that.

And you're right about posting what you want to see, too, that's how things work. But I'm sorta given a choice, too. Like if I wanted to make a thread about missing silverware (I did!) I could post it in either /chat/ or /oat/, and it's totally just a weird random chatty thread, so it's what I want to see, it's content I'm interested in.

So the question then is "Where do I want to see it?" And the answer for me is /oat/. For me, at least, an active /chat/ isn't something I really want to see. For me, /chat/ didn't really die, it just moved. I've gotten exactly what I was always getting from /chat/ from /oat/ instead ever since the switch. I will still post on /chat/ because some fun things show up there, like Ulysses' threads, but as far as I'm concerned there's no reason to have those things there rather than on /oat/.

And again, that's not something that requires any action from the site, that's just me posting normally, that's what happens. It's a fluid natural thing. We could say that our changes to the site killed /chat/, but in reality everything that was on /chat/ still exists. It's not dead at all, it's just a couple letters over. So I am not very concerned about "reviving" it.

>>161087
I've never understood why people seem to think that /oat/ having little content means it NEEDS more content, needs it enough to change up the rules.

/pony/ can be super slow sometimes but you never hear people saying we should allow more things on /pony/ just to... have more things. I guess it's because /oat/ is supposed to be fun all the time?

>>161100

Some people are used to much much faster speeds for their boards. That's why you've had people lamenting the death of Ponychan for two years. And if you compare us to 4chan, or even to the us of the past, post counts are down, and some people consider that a problem that needs to be fixed. And to that end people try to come up with ways to fix it.

In practice, though, this is actually still a lot faster than a lot of boards and it fills people's desires for activity just fine. We have our ups and downs for activity, everyone does, but even the lows are usually active enough that no one gets too bored. Post count is not fully indicative of quality and having less posts than we used to does not mean we have to shove more posts in places.

Which, looping back to my last post, is why I don't think /chat/ needs assistance. As a patron of the board, I am getting the threads and posts I want out of it and there is not an issue for me. I don't think /pony/ needs help, I get what I want out of it.

But then to go back to Moony's point, Moony and some other people are not getting what they want out of /oat/. What they want is not speed, necessarily, but more ponies. The content on /oat/ is stuff I enjoy, but it's often off-topic. So in their case there actually is a legitimate problem that they want fixed, which is they want more pony content. Unfortunately (or perhaps very fortunately?) there is no way to amend rules to the board to encourage pony topics. You have to just go and make pony topics. And they usually do really well over there, too, I can't even count the number of times someone's OP is just "Rarity Thread" and it hits autosage. If you post it they will come. If people want pony topics, go make some topics that have to do with ponies, y'know?

And that's what the other thread they made is about! It's about coming up with pony topics! So everything's in order and I need to sleep more, I do not get enough sleep and then I ramble. Should stop that.

>>161100
>>161101
let me just say that the current /oat/ is fine! i think adding some little events though won't hurt /oat/ at all, and will allow more fun to happen

i don't think a weekly event is such a controversial thing to have :c

And if we are talking about opening /oat/ originally... well, that was because /oat/ was literally a one post a week board

I apologize if this is coming into the discussion a little late but, if I may?


This community has gone through a lot and many of these arguments and POVs have been brought up before.

Unfortunately, many things don't work as they stand because the community itself doesn't work the way it used to.

I remember how active this place used to be, and it was insanely active. But now it moves at a much more relaxed pace. In fact it feels much much slower than it used to be.

Why is that? Well, for multiple reasons. Time passes, people lose interest in things, but I think that overall it's the general spirit of the place. People aren't having as much fun as they used to. Everyone gets too serious about everything too quickly. Heck even people get to serious about having fun and everything just becomes... meh. This place used to be more like a playground than a discussion board.

If there's something I've learned about 'places' online, it's that wherever you are becomes what you treat it as. So if we treat this place like a fun, relaxed place to be, it would become that.

Granted there are negative posts and sometimes negative posters, but this should be a place that reduces the negativity with love and playfulness, not a place that fights fire with fire and ultimately burns the place down. Thank goodness there isn't much negativity, but it's still bad that we have some.

I truly think that we need to start to imbue this place with the fun and kind spirit that we've seen it have before, and do our best to leave our negativity behind us. Just relax, play around, post things that are fun and participate in making things fun. Using our creativity, make something new, etc.

We can change this place for the better, and I know that for sure. I've seen it before.


as for the organization of threads, right now doesn't feel like a good time to evaluate that. we should focus more on changing ourselves first.


Just my two bits.

>>161107
...i agree with this. i know, i have been more a part of the problem lately than a part of the solution, when it comes to helping the attitude of things.

at least that is something i can resolve to improve

>>161107
I agree with your assessment that that's why no new people are coming to Ponychan (that and the lack of ponychan putting itself out there). But the reason people left is because of
A. The fact that alternative sites became available (namely /mlp/)
B. Overall very bad moderating decisions that alienated a lot of people

And I agree that if this place wants to get more active, we do need to change the culture of it. But I would ask how you expect that to happen.

you guys dont have the balls to remove /chat/ and merge it with /oat/

I don't see what the big deal is,
but I'm relatively new around these parts.

>>161114
This.

>>161116
>>161114
Don't look at me, If I was in charge I would have already done it.

mods are small, tiny pussies who cant even bench their body weight. how are they gonna do something cool and brave and hardcore like consolidating boards

>>161077
Because, no matter HOW MANY TIMES THIS IS BROUGHT UP by MULTIPLE DIFFERENT PEOPLE, NONE of you DO ANYTHING to FIX IT.

/oat/'s basically just a /b/ that full of slightly less edgy people and is being suffocated by such random discussion, even though it doesn't look like that.

Meanwhile, /chat/'s redundant because the only reason ANYONE has to go to it is because "Oh, we don't discuss ponies here," which, by the way, like two people ACTUALLY care about. /oat/ won't die if we get rid of what Moony pushed for and close it off to random content. Why? Because you'll still have the random roleplay, the OC threads, the fandom discussion, some idiot posting lines from whatever shitfic (probably trolling, but whatever). There's even MORE fucking pony-related content now than there was when the board was opened, as much as the new content is not (in my opinion) that good.

We have comics now (with bad stories and continuity, but w/e). Some people think EqG is pony related, and whilst I disagree, I can hide EqG threads. There's enough content that we would be able to keep the board alive (yes, it would be slower, but alive) and not starve /chat/ of posts.

/chat/ doesn't want pony. /pony/ doesn't want crazy. The option I've put forward CONSTANTLY has what is probably the most feasibility in terms of keeping every happy. Why? Because it gives every one a place to go for everything. Want off topic? /chat/. Fandom and less serious pony discussion? /oat/ Soopar cereal pony-related discussion? /pony/.

Plain and simple, it's easy. but no, let's debate for another eight months and fix fuck all.

>>161101
>Moony and some other people are not getting what they want out of /oat/. What they want is not speed, necessarily, but more ponies.
It's funny, because Moony is pretty much the only person who PUSHED for /oat/ to open up.

Last edited at Sat, Sep 6th, 2014 10:56

>>161119
Because we actually cant do a fucking thing.

Board options are entirely under the admins domain and even if a mod wanted to do something about it, he quite literally cant do shit because the option to do so is physically not present in our tool box.

I sympathize with:

>but no, let's debate for another eight months and fix fuck all.

If you believe nothing else i have ever said or will say, just trust me when i say i know exactly how you fucking feel with that statement.

>>161122
Then let's look at the admins.

Orange may not do much anymore, but at least he keeps the site running and all that.

Inkwell, however. He came back about what, a month ago? And said "Sorry I'm never around," and left again.

So why don't we, I don't know, fire Inkwell and get a new admin that has experience with the social and, for lack of a better term, behind-the-scenes aspect of running things (even if they can't code, which is what we have Zeke doing. And Zeke has accomplished more since he was modded than anyone in the two years before him).

Seriously. We need an admin who is involved, capable of dealing with issues, and able to properly delegate what needs to be done to those capable of doing them, not an admin who spends 99% of their time offsite dealing with real-life issues.

Don't get me wrong, real life issues are fine and dandy, but we can't have someone accept responsibility for the site and then shirk that responsibility. If you think you can handle it, say yes tot he offer, and then DON'T DO ANYTHING, there's something wrong.

Or multiple things wrong. Were Inkwell in the gaming clan I help run, I would have probably replaced him by now. People in a mod or admin position need to be proactive and DO things for the site. They shouldn't be ignoring it.

>>161125
>Orange may not do much anymore, but at least he keeps the site running and all that.
Technically the site just keeps running, and Inkwell pays the bills.

>So why don't we, I don't know, fire Inkwell and get a new admin that has experience with the social and, for lack of a better term, behind-the-scenes aspect of running things

Well for one because Inkwell owns the site and would have to willingly step down before anything could change, and yea, I share this opinion so hard. but more on that another time.

>Seriously. We need an admin who is involved, capable of dealing with issues, and able to properly delegate what needs to be done to those capable of doing them, not an admin who spends 99% of their time offsite dealing with real-life issues.
I agree entirely, 100%.

>>161126
I disabled my filter just to reply to this.

If Inkwell pays, then why is Orange an admin. If Inkwell pays, why doesn't he put more time into the site. If he pays and realizes he can't always be here, why not find someone who can to HELP HIM.

It happened to me over the summer. I run a TF2 team, a very important asset of the clan I'm in. I had to work, so I told my co-lead he needed to pick up the slack and find someone to help him. We did find someone to help, but they didn't do a good job. We still did decently in the season, but that's beside the point. Point is that the person who was meant to help didn't and we (myself and my boss) bitched at her about her lack of assistance and her witch hunt wherein she blamed it on me to try and get me fired.

Regardless, if the admins aren't helping, take it into your own hands - not you, Astra. I couldn't trust you to own a worm farm let alone help run this site solo (or at all, but more on that another time), but the mods in general.

>>161122
>>161126
Let me guess. With all the stuff planned, nothing is happening at all, to great frustration of everyone?

>>161127
He isn't. He was demoted or fired a while ago. http://www.ponychan.net/chan/?p=contact

>>161130
Or maybe he was talked into not running away screaming "I'M FREE! FREE!"

>>161130
It's a start. Now we just need to get Inkwell to get an admin who WILL be around when needed.

>>161119
>/pony/ doesn't want crazy.

I won't comment on all the other stuff flying around right now, but I would like to remind everyone that we tested out a week of crazy being allowed in /pony/ and even though it was entirely allowed, nothing actually came out of it. There was so little desire for that kind of content that it continued to not exist, just like it does/did on /oat/.

>>161133
Which doesn't disprove my statements.

>>161134

Oh, sorry. My point was that no one on /pony/ actually minded and the end consensus was that everyone was totally okay with opening it up, but also didn't really see the point if it wouldn't bring in new threads anyway.

>>161135
Mmm. Thing is, I'm not sure if that'd be the result should they merge /oat/ with /pony/ and crazy threads actually ARE made.

I mean, if it won't hurt anyone, then let's merge /oat/ and /pony/ for all pony content and have /chat/ for off topic again.

>>161135
I remember differently. I was personally fine with opening up the bord at the time, but there were definitely more than a few votes against it.

But in hindsight, maybe those were just from /gala/ posters that didn't even really use the board to begin with. It was during the month that they decided to come back just to circlejerk and talk about how they miss the old days in every thread.

>>161142
>maybe those were just from /gala/ posters that didn't even really use the board to begin with

Considering how many threads have been made on /meta/ about merging/deleting/doing something with a board by people who have never even posted on said board before, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.

>>161142
>>161143

Okay, there were some dissidents, definitely, but the overall vote was either okay with it or neutral. Initially there was a lot of opposition because, like me, people wanted /pony/ to be a super serious place where only serious stuff happened. Then we opened it up and the result was basically nothing so opinions got...less enthusiastic. And to this point, personally at least, I am only opposed to this opening on the grounds that it isn't likely to change anything at all.

And like you said, those nays may have been from people who only showed up to argue in the first place. We really do have too much of that on the site.

"/meta/ posters", I swear...

>>161133
There were about 5-6 threads (That went past ten posts) that would have otherwise been moved to /oat/ during that time.

It didnt disrupt normal proceedings, and it gave a place for topics that were, are and will likely continue to be getting strangled out by the random chatter on /oat/.

We'd have to try it for a longer period of time to gauge the long term effects, but the short term was a resounding success.

>>161152

>5-6 threads

I dunno, that's less than a thread a day, I think my initial comment stands. There wasn't much to go around.

Do you feel like pony threads are getting strangled on /oat/, though? I feel like they usually float near the top until they die out naturally. Might be interesting to see how it played out in a long term sense, though, for sure. On a slower board they'd obviously be visible for longer, so maybe more people would bump them up. Might actually infuse some extra bait conversation into the more serious threads, too, in theory.

Really, the most important part still is that it didn't really disrupt anything, so the worst case scenario is nothing happens. Neutrality isn't really a downside, so there's basically nothing to lose with further attempts.

>>161153
The threads themselves are usually top until they die, but they are usually filled with chatter aside from the initial pone and the occasional spurt of somebody new joining the thread via the OP.

And yes, that's one of my theories.
The most thoughtful topics tend to come from the stupidest sources.

And i agree on your most important part, hence why i called the lack of any huge reaction a resounding success.

>>161127
Some of this was addressed, but I'll address it myself anyway.

Orange is not currently an admin, he's just a site Dev, and there are plans for a rework to the staff structure right now, it's an ongoing discussion that inkwell posted about in /meta/.

The most any moderator can do to take it into their own hands would be to come up with some kind of plan that helps Inkwell with the running of the site on a day to day basis while still allowing him to be around for any major decisions since he is the site owner.

>let alone help run this site solo
Anyone running this site solo would be stupid, the best system IMO that leaves Inkwell where he is would be two admins underneath him to run the site day to day and help with any major decisions so all they have to do is get inkwell for a night and go "We want to ____" and he can give the yes/no/discussion of why to make it happen or not happen.

>>161160
The best system that you can imagine involves keeping Inkwell as admin?

>>161161
No, but it's a lot less work, and more likely to succeed when you convince someone to do something that overall makes their lives easier.

I don't really feel like there's a good chance that someone could convince inkwell to hand the entire site over to someone else.

>>161162
I'm pretty sure the only people capable of doing that are you guys. I mean, the guy doesn't post, so the only thing that is probably keeping him from being apathetic enough to hand it to any one of you is you guys putting up with this shit. Unless he just likes to feel important and has an unhealthy abundance of cash, in which case we are all fucked.

>>161163
I actually think he does have an unhealthy abundance of cash, I have no idea about the first one.

>>161119
Ember... that just isn't true. i only joined the voices for that after it had become quite a movement.

i admit i was the most visible figure for the movement, but let's not forget we put it to not one, but two separate polls where opening /oat/ took a strong majority over any of the other decisions, including an /oat/chat/ merger and the status quo.

i was not at all the only person who wanted it opened up, Ember.

Last edited at Sun, Sep 7th, 2014 18:48

>>161163
Inkwell is just a shell corporation that Zamoonda set up

>>161168

zamoonda would actually do things

>>161159
>And i agree on your most important part, hence why i called the lack of any huge reaction a resounding success.

I suppose I can see how that could be considered a success, yeah. I guess as one of the early decriers, I expected a huge reaction and thought that's really what people were going for, so from my side there was no huge reaction and that meant it failed, but because there was no huge reaction it also meant I was okay with it. Looking back on it now, though, a huge reaction would've pissed off me and anyone like me, so that's really what failure would've been. I think I was still upset about some more subtle pushes towards that sort of thing involving threads I can't quite remember now, so I was expecting something much different, like it was just open season for trolls and the whole board would move in the opposite direction of what anyone would've wanted.

>>161165
No, but you were a mod and pushed harder than anyone else.

>>161111
No, I see you've been trying to bring a good attitude, but others haven't been reacting in kind. You're not causing any problems. :)

>>161113
>But I would ask how you expect that to happen.
As I said, "we need to focus on changing ourselves first". It needs to be a change in the posters more than in the chan organization itself. If just a few posters put effort into changing the attitude of the place and post things that are creative and upbeat, then there could actually be a big change in this place.

>>161119
>>161165
>>161190
No, the members of /oat/ were getting very annoyed with the fact that the mods were moving their random threads, particularly when there was a fuzzy line as to whether it was pony related or not, and so the board itself pushed for the opening of /oat/. Moony just stood with the majority. Agreeing and allowing isn't pushing for something.


And all of this is besides the point...

---------------------------------

Why on earth did this become a "blame the mods for everything" fest? The mods are a minority group of people who's responsibilities include making sure there is no material against the rules of the board, and resolving out of control issues. They are a tiny group of volunteers who are trying to help out.

The mods are not the people who post porn. They don't make bad threads on your favorite boards. They aren't the ones who have a bad attitude about everything and begin creating conflicts wherever they go. We are. And they just so happen to end up in those places because that's their job, to try and fix it, even if the users involved are too stubborn or prideful to attempt to fix their behavior. And when the problem isn't resolved, everyone blames the mods. Stop blaming the mods and start taking responsibility for yourself!

Most of the problems on this chan are because of us not because of the mods. We need to change, and if we're not willing or able to see and admit that we have something we need to improve on or bad habits that we need to break, then we will never get this chan to be the way we want it to be and we will never have a good time here.

Seriously. The only thing that any of us can change is ourselves. How about we focus on doing that first, then we can worry about other things.

>>161191
>No, the members of /oat/ were getting very annoyed with the fact that the mods were moving their random threads, particularly when there was a fuzzy line as to whether it was pony related or not, and so the board itself pushed for the opening of /oat/. Moony just stood with the majority. Agreeing and allowing isn't pushing for something.

> there was a fuzzy line as to whether it was pony related or not

> Moony just stood with the majority.

Okay, two things.

1.
Pony related is any topic that involves My little pony: Friendship is magic, the previous generations of MLP and also filly funtasia because a couple guys asked for that.
This does not include "Posting pony pictures while chatting amongst yourselves."
If it was something like a "Vinyl thread", then such a derail would have been tolerated as long as people kept posting vinyl.
Please tell me where on earth this fuzzy line is, because it seems pretty clear cut to me.


2.
He was literally making threads for the sole purpose of chatting in them, despite the mods otherwise unanimously saying not to do that on /oat/ and despite at least one instance of him explicitly being asked not to do that.
If that's not pushing for a change, i need a new dictionary.

I'd comment on the rest, but as one of the aforementioned mods, i think it'd be inappropriate.

>>161195
>it seems pretty clear cut to me.
That was one of the issues. Everyone had a different perspective of where that line was. Your's is different than what some others thought, and when inconsistency was seen, people would complain, flames would start, etc. Not that there wasn't a clear established set of rules, but that there was more than one interpretation of them that was nearly undefinable in any clear cut way without arguments.

>He was literally making threads for the sole purpose of chatting in them, despite the mods otherwise unanimously saying not to do that on /oat/
So wait, the rules of /oat/ got even more strict since I left in April of 2012? Like, you couldn't even post a thread just for chatting? Wow. I see why it changed now.

>I'd comment on the rest, but as one of the aforementioned mods, i think it'd be inappropriate.
You mean bring up the fact that there were in fact bad mods? Yeah, there were, but for the purpose of what I was talking about, it wasn't generally the mods fault that things got out of hand on the chan.

>>161196
>Not that there wasn't a clear established set of rules, but that there was more than one interpretation of them that was nearly undefinable in any clear cut way without arguments.
Alternatively, people ignored the clear cut distinction of "pony related" in favor of arguing semantics, most likely because at least one mod at the time was allowing that by making threads that other mods had explicitly said were against the rules and thus giving the impression that those threads were okay since that mod was doing it.

>So wait, the rules of /oat/ got even more strict since I left in April of 2012?
....Why are you commenting on the things that went down as if you were there, when you dont know one of the core problems.
Are we talking about two different time periods here?

>You mean bring up the fact that there were in fact bad mods?
I mean, in general, bias and all that.

I mean, i could say mods fucked up, and that'd be true.
And i could say that users fucked up, which would also be the truth.
However, by being on the mod side of the fence, my perception of things is heavily skewed in favor of my own position, which makes it inappropriate for me to comment.

I can explain my reasoning around specific events, but i cant really comment on generalities because of any unintentional bias on my part.

I.E: I think i'm doing a decent job considering all you dingbats hardly just do as you're told without kicking and screaming the whole way down.

>>161199
>Alternatively, people ignored the clear cut distinction of "pony related" in favor of arguing semantics...
As I said, there might have been rules, but no one agreed on what they meant. That's always a problem.

>Are we talking about two different time periods here?
I left in April 2012, but kept track of the chan in the two years following until I returned, just to see what was going on, what rule/board changes were being made, who as doing what etc. I might have missed a few details, but the general idea was pretty easy to see.

>However, by being on the mod side of the fence, my perception of things is heavily skewed in favor of my own position
Well whatever position you're on, it's good to have an idea of what things look like from the other side. I was just trying to let people know that they can't just go thinking that it's only the people who aren't themselves that are wrong. I'm kinda tired of all the finger-pointing. It gets us nowhere and isn't productive in any way.

But yeah, I see your points.

Last edited at Mon, Sep 8th, 2014 08:42

>>161202
>That's always a problem.
Fair enough, although i once again attest that i see no problem (And have heard none) with the rule itself, just the users ignoring it and the mod that enabled that.

>I might have missed a few details, but the general idea was pretty easy to see.
Obviously not if you missed the fact that chatter threads weren't allowed on /oat/ and were primarily the threads that got moved during that time period, with the occasional roleplay thread going to /rp/ if it was following an established canon rather than being spontaneous.

>I'm kinda tired of all the finger-pointing.
Objection, etc.

>>161206
>just the users ignoring it and the mod that enabled that.
Well, can't really argue with the fact that that did indeed happen, but I wouldn't say that the mod that posted with the users was "pushing". The users pushed more than anyone else, and while they probably justified themselves by using the mod as an example, that doesn't make it the mod's fault. While you could say it did, I still say that the users were the one's using that as an excuse.

And either way, I wasn't on any "side" because neither side wanted anything cooperative. They just wanted their way and pushed for it.

>if you missed the fact that
I didn't miss those facts, for sure. If by chat thread you mean something that had zero-to-nothing to do with ponies, then yeah, I didn't miss anything. But if by chat thread you mean something that started pony related or was partially related to ponies that just became a general chat, then I missed some things.

>Objection, etc.
le gasp!

Last edited at Mon, Sep 8th, 2014 09:06

>>161208
The users pushed at the rules because, as has often been the case with boards, they didn't see /oat/ as a place to post pony-related threads as part of Ponychan, but as a community in of itself, and wanted to chat with their friends in that community. /oat/ posters didn't want to do their off-topic chatting in /chat/ because their friends weren't necessarily there. The administration's official position is usually that boards are divided up by topic, not community, and hence the conflict. This is why everything to do with board identities and content is so fraught.

>>161210
That is a very good way to put it. Hence /gala/ came into being to attempt to organize that need.

>>161206
That's not at all fair, Fenolio. The fact of the matter was, "pony-related" was not at all defined.

And some ponies who got a "Yes, that's pony related" from some mods were banned, and others who got a "no, that's not pony related" could still pass.

"pony-related" was all up to a mod's interpretation, and there was a huge amount of bias against certain ponies, and not against others.

The definition was never written down in any way, except the record player repetition of "pony related is related to ponies."

This ambiguity is literally what lead to the creation of mlpchan and the splitting of literally half of our user base. Opening /oat/ cured that ambiguity... and that's been really important for this site.

>>161191
Well that's admirable, but again, how? You can't just force people to change. A lot of posters don't want the attitude of /oat/ to change at all, many don't even think it should. Change can only happen if you want it to.
>If just a few posters put effort into changing the attitude of the place and post things that are creative and upbeat, then there could actually be a big change in this place.
Define a few. 2 or 3? /oat/ has like 60 or 70 posters, good luck doing anything. 9 or 10? Yeah I can see that happening. I feel like at least I've been trying to do my part. I think unlikeable pony has especially done a good job of creating pony related topics. I'm not trying to be all doom and gloom here, I just feel like /oat/ isn't united enough for this to really work. Not that I would discourage people from trying to be nice and have pony related discussions far from that.
>>161199
>Alternatively, people ignored the clear cut distinction of "pony related" in favor of arguing semantics, most likely because at least one mod at the time was allowing that by making threads that other mods had explicitly said were against the rules and thus giving the impression that those threads were okay since that mod was doing it.
I'm not really in on this discussion, but I will say that a major reason the rules were such an issue back then is because people actively tried any way to get around them by arguing semantics and technicalities. That and the fact that the mods weren't consistent in their enforcement, though I think it was a bit ridiculous that people thought that the mods would be perfect. So when people would get banned for these things, even if they broke the rules, they would call nazi mods. I should know, I was one of those people.

>>161208
>>161210
This is just what i mean. The users push against the rules because the rules are so poorly defined, and so unnecessarily restrictive.

What good, exactly, does it do us to ban people who don't fit -exactly- into a vague definition of "pony related?"

It extends a mod's control, sure. But it scares users away. Ponychan is a community, not a country! And the staff are supposed to be the janitors, and not the judiciary.

What we did was abolished fun, and banned innocent posters for not wanting to adhere to strict rules; the strict rules of which literally resulted in more hemorrhage of posters than anything else in our site's history.

the audacity that you have to pin that on "one moderator" makes me rather flustered.

Last edited at Mon, Sep 8th, 2014 10:20

>>161206
And for Celestia's sake, if you couldn't hear the complaints of users concerning the ambiguous "pony-related only" policy, you must not have been paying much attention.

I don't understand how this argument has anything to do with the thread topic. It looks like a lot of old grudges, to me. The whole pony-related vs. not pony-related bit seems entirely irrelevant at this point, and going forward.

it is, and you are right, Admiral. but, if i don't speak up for myself, ponies start to actually believe what Fenolio is saying.

i won't speak up on these topics if they aren't constantly brought up while i'm not looking.

>sigh

i think i will apologize for getting a little feisty in this thread. ...sorry. i'll try to sit myself out of this one, and just stick to the OP as the conversation continues.

it's not really fair for me to be flustered in this way over something small when there are real issues that do need solving. it is better for me to work towards the solution, than be a roadblock.

>>161219
What's wrong with agreeing with Fenolio? His ideas and opinions are much more realistic and correct than the others in this thread.

EDIT:
>i won't speak up on these topics if they aren't constantly brought up while i'm not looking.
So what makes you the Czar of What Gets Discussed On Ponychan? No offense, but that line there screams entitlement.

Last edited at Mon, Sep 8th, 2014 11:47

>>161225
sorry, i mean things specifically involving me. like, referencing my name, you know?

i know, you have often asked for moderation concerning what you feel is besmirching of your own name. i've been overreacting, i admit that. But still, i hope you of all ponies might understand why i felt that way.

As for Fenolio's ideas, i have no comment. He's a smart pony, but i don't personally agree with his ideas, though i can see the merit of them.

>>161226
That makes more sense. Still, you have to own up. You did, as a mod, push for opening /oat/ up to non-topic discussion. You can't really sugarcoat that.

>>161228
i didn't mean to sugarcoat that. As a moderator, i was certainly pro-opening /oat/, and i believe that's well known. i take responsibility for a lot of drama that happened in that discussion.

This having been said, the threads i made at the time which did get moved were not politically motivated. i will admit though, that the moving of those threads did help me to become more and more pro-opening.

i was not the only mod for it though, and a supermajority of users ultimately decided it was for the best.

if you have more questions Ember, i would be happy to answer them in private. not to save face; you're welcome to post our conversation later... but simply because i did say i would stop talking about this stuff in this thread, and it is not fair to the thread, or to Fenolio, for me to continue in this way.

>>161212
>and there was a huge amount of bias against certain ponies, and not against others.

I have to ask here if when you say "ponies" you're referring to people or if you're referring to whether certain ponies from the show were allowed as topics.

>>161216

It's way off-topic, but it naturally segued and the original topic was completely shot down as anything important or meaningful. This isn't an uncommon occurrence.

The fact that it's about old grudges and personal problems rather than actual site direction could be seen as an issue, though. We're arguing semantics from the past instead of finding a path for the future, which is the only important thing here. I get that Moony thinks he's been besmirched and he's got a right to defend himself when that happens, but ultimately I don't think this discussion serves much purpose.

>>161239
i meant certain posters, sorry

and... yes. this discussion really doesn't help.

>>161216
>>161239
>t's way off-topic
In one way yes, and in another no. This thread is about how the community needs to learn to get along and making a plan to be able to bring that about. This discussion is bringing up the major incident that caused most of the issues, and it's bringing up other issues that need resolved.

Sure they're old wounds, but there is plenty we can learn from them.

>>161221
It's no problem Moony. I understand. Misunderstandings and bias occur all the time. We just have to be patient and try to see the truth for what it is. It's hard, requires that we set our own biases aside for a moment. I technically don't agree with Fenolio's perspective on the matter either, but he does bring up some interesting points and has presented some valid points regarding what happened, and will happen if we're not careful.

I guess if I had to summarize this post, it would be, Forgive, but don't forget, for if we forget history we're bound to repeat it.

I just want us all to get along and leave the past in the past without neglecting to learn from it.

We need to be considerate of the opinions and perspectives of others and seek to help everyone see a good solution to the issues at hand. And from what I've seen, the only thing that will get us through this is if each of us takes responsibility for our own actions, stops holding grudges against others, and tries to have a good friendly time. It's simple. Difficult, yes, but simple.

>>161251
thank you piercing. this is a very reasonable post. i see the merits in Fenolio's posts, too... i really do. i hope that whatever happens, we can all work together to do what is best for our family

Basically, as for infighting how to resolve it is imho much akin to how it's already handled in the world at large. Punish both parties who do wrong, and be twice as hard on instigators. This discourages people from starting shit and proportionally discourages retaliation as well. This is the only thing that's ever seem to work, as if you punish both parties equally, you end up with people trolling just for giggles or doing things just to get others in trouble. It's fair, tested, and economic and puts all the things which can bring a board down into one pot. It will cause some upset at first, but it's one of the few ways to deter fighting. People will always dislike each other, disagree, and have strong emotions and/or opinions over small minute things that they feel are important. It is human nature and you won't change it. Social order and justice that is practical and well tested in the world at large seems the best answer to me. I realize there are some who like to treat online different than real life and that's fine. But the line is becoming less and less blurred what with that kid jailed for comments he made while angry on facebook over a league of legends game, or the NSA literally tracking you everywhere you go and smarter and smarter ways to decide who you are and what you do with your online time. Real world consequences are already finding their way online. And in my most humble opinion, we have a system that works already in the world at large so why not borrow from it. Punish fighting parties, but punish instigators to a greater degree. Simple.

>>161499

>>161499
I think a big issue to consider is what can be considered as instigating.

Cause if we have to consistently crack down on every comment people make, people will start avoiding ponychan, because a small joke can get them banned.

I find it funny that ponychan started because of that sort of stuff happening in the first place, something to do with 4chan I believe, It's a bit ironic that now ponychan is on the brink of breaking up because of the same things that started it.

>>161502
Ponychan was started because people would get banned for posting ponies on 4chan.

>>161503
Granted, doesn't mean there wasn't already infighting.